


Universal Medicine

by Waldo



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Cuddling and Snuggling, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-10
Updated: 2007-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-05 13:25:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waldo/pseuds/Waldo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm wearing naught by my skivvies – wet skivvies  at that – and you want my blanket?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Universal Medicine

**Author's Note:**

> Written for   the  [Hugs, Cuddles and Kisses Prompt-a-thon](http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/302607.html)Pure fluff.  Because that's what the thing-a-thon called for. :)  Beta by the inimitible Kyrdwyn. :)

_ Hugs are the universal medicine.  ~Author Unknown_

 

John found himself scooting closer and closer to the fire the louder the winds roared and the louder the rain pounded against the roof of the… hut?  wigwam? yurt?  Whatever the semi-nomadic inhabitants of P4X-117 called their dwellings.

They'd been trading with these folks for almost a year now.  They were warm and friendly and seemed extremely pleased to gather as many bushels of wild berries and watermelons as the Atlanteans could eat in exchange for vaccinations for their children and a few improvements on their architecture and simple engineering developments.

The call that had come through the gate early that morning that a storm had caused a mudslide and that dozens of people had disappeared had galvanized John and his team, Carson and his team, as well as Radek and several other scientists who could monitor the sensors in the jumpers as they scanned for people in the river or under the mud.

As well as they could, they'd rescued everyone still alive and most of the bodies had been recovered.  There was still the debris of a secondary slide a few kilometers away to excavate, but John had decided that once any survivors had been brought back to the summer camp, that the recovery operation would wait until morning light made it less hazardous.

It was still raining – sliding along a scale between a fine mist and ear-splitting thunderstorms, but never quitting altogether – late into the night.  John had sent his team and all the other marines on the mission to clean up and get some rest over an hour ago.  But for Carson and his team, their work had just begun.  Ronon and Teyla had walked up to the stargate a few hours before the sunset to ask for a relief shift of medical workers and John knew they should be taking over soon.

He inched closer to the fire as another whip-crack of thunder split the night just before the rain began pelting the top of the yurt-hut-wigwam-thing with a renewed vengeance.  He began entertaining the idea of dragging Carson out of the lodge he had converted into a passable medical ward, but a few raindrops pelting him in a face as they were driven through the smoke-hole cured him of that bout of chivalry for at least a few minutes.

Fortunately for him, before it could resurface, the leather door was pushed back and Carson stumbled in and refastened the door.

John jumped up and began tying the reinforcing strips to keep the wind from blowing in or letting the rain sneak through.

Carson was bent over shaking out his wet hair.  "You lock Rodney out and we'll never hear the end of it."  He stood and pushed his wet hair back over his forehead. 

"Rodney ended up going in to crash with Radek and Li, something about reconfiguring the sensors to detect weak spots in the mountains or something… I didn't understand it.  All I know is that it had something to do with that experiment that Radek ran on the mainland that had Ronon all pissed off."

"Aye, I remember.  Ronon said something about not knowing science was so noisy."  Carson stripped off his jacket, trudged to a corner and wrung out the water.  "It's bloody awful out there," he mumbled as he fought with wet shoelaces and waterlogged boots.

"Come here," John said, steering Carson to a pile of furs – the one that would have been Rodney's bed– and getting him to sit.  "You have to be freezing," he muttered as he stripped Carson's t-shirt off.  "Come on, out of these."  He tugged gently on the waistband of Carson's pants.  Carson unzipped and unbuttoned and wiggled the miserably clingy fabric over his butt and then sat back down, letting John drag them and his socks the rest of the way off.

John pulled the topmost fur up and around Carson, rubbing his shoulders through it to try and warm him.  "Sit here for a sec."  Carson nodded and watched as John shook out and wrung out his sopping uniform and hung the pieces over one of the lower roof supports.

"How'd you avoid the drowned rat look?"  Carson asked as John lined up his trainers next to John's own boots so everything could dry.

"I was in the jumper most of the day helping locate people and when we set down it was only misting.  I sat in front of the fire while I waited for you to get back which took care of the rest of it."

Carson stood, keeping the fur close around his shoulders.  It was big and heavy and a little awkward.  He shuffled across the brightly woven carpets that covered the dirt floor towards the fire scar.  "That sounds like a brilliant idea."

Having finished dealing with the 'laundry', John grabbed another fur from one of the other beds and stood behind Carson.  "Give me this," he said tugging on Carson's blanket.

"I'm wearing naught by my skivvies – wet skivvies  at that – and you want my blanket?  There's dozens of them in here.  The village council said that since you, me and Rodney were the team leaders out here that we got to share the guest house – the guest house with about fifty blankets and –"

John shut him up with a kiss.  When he pulled back he grinned, "Quit bitching and give me the damn blanket," he said deceptively mildly.

Looking suitably stunned, Carson released his hold on the fur.

John hooked an arm around Carson's waist and pulled him over a few steps to where he'd dropped the other fur near the fire to act as a sit-upon.  John sat with his knees up, but feet apart.  He tugged Carson down to sit between them and then took the blanket, wrapped it behind his shoulders and then pulled it around to wrap them both up in it, his arms tight around Carson's chest. 

Carson let out a great sigh.  "Oh, this is nice."

John fiddled with the blanket until they were securely wrapped, with just enough of a gap to let in the air warmed by the fire. 

Carson wiggled against John, getting comfortable.  He took the edges of the blanket from John and held it up around them, letting John slide both arms around Carson's belly.  Carson shifted a little more until he could rest his head against John's shoulder.  "My hair is probably getting your shirt all wet," he whispered.

"I don't care," John mumbled into his hair.

"Did you get supper?  They brought food to the lodge.  What about you?"  Carson felt his eyes start to flutter closed as the heat of the fire and the warmth of John's arms seeped through his chilled flesh.

"We all ate right after we called it a day.  Rodney insisted we make some MRE chicken stuff and then Lorne decided he wanted macaroni and cheese so we ended up with this MRE casserole mess.  It could have been worse.  And Rok'sh'na brought us some of the berries that they'd been putting together for us.  I put a couple handfuls in an MRE pouch and stashed them with my gear if you want some."  John began tracing light patterns on Carson's back, feeling him grow heavier and heavier against his shoulder.   They'd been going for almost twenty hours straight and Carson had been hauling the bodies of both the living and the dead for much of that time.  John had spent most of the day behind the controls of the jumper ferrying people back and forth between the slide and village about six kilometers away.  Taxing enough, but not nearly as physically demanding as what Carson and the other medical personnel had been doing, dragging bodies out of gooey mud and trying to revive them with CPR and rescue breathing.

"Maybe for breakfast," Carson muttered, shifting again to get one arm around John's back, his hand curling around the back of John's black t-shirt.

John kissed his forehead.  "Okay."

"You know… if someone walks in…" Carson said through a yawn.

John smiled and hugged Carson closer, pulling them down to lie spoon-fashioned on the fur.  "We just tied something like sixteen lashes to that damn door to keep it waterproof.  I'm pretty sure it's people-proof.  Or at least it's going to be enough to give us plenty of warning."

Carson snuggled against John, hoping his boxers were dry enough that he wasn't leaving an embarrassing wet spot on John's pants.  "Alright," he whispered, eyes already shut.

John tucked his arm around Carson's belly again, his thumb gently stroking back and forth over soft skin.

Another huge crash of thunder caused Carson to jump in John's embrace. 

"Shh…" John whispered, kissing the back of his head.  "Just the storm.  Go to sleep.  It's probably going to be a long day tomorrow too."

Carson shuffled onto his other side, mashing his face into John's chest, letting the fire warm his back.  "I don't want to go to bed yet."

"Screw the beds," John said with a grin Carson couldn't see.  "I think we're fine right here."

Carson apparently agreed, John decided, because when he looked down, he could see that Carson was fast asleep.


End file.
